Testing 1-2-3. Testing 1-2-3, this is Radio Free Mormon, on the air, broadcasting behind enemy lines.

Tonight's episode, the Mormon polygamy controversy.

Now, there is, of course, a great deal of controversy that has swirled around the Mormon practice of polygamy since the 1830s.

But the specific controversy I'm going to be dealing with tonight has to do with Joseph

Smith and whether Joseph Smith actually practiced polygamy or not.

For many, many years, this was the prime difference between the reorganized Church of Jesus

Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Brighamite Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and

the Brighamite Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was on the practice of polygamy.

The Brighamite faction maintaining that, yes, polygamy was from God and did need to be practiced

by God's faithful saints as a mark of their devotion and loyalty.

The reorganized church, on the other hand, maintained that no, polygamy was not from God,

that it was an abomination, and that Joseph Smith, the founder of the church, never practiced

it at all.

What the reorganized church claimed was that Brigham Young was the culprit here, and

Brigham Young came up with the idea of practicing polygamy, announced

it publicly to the world once they were safely, as he thought, ensconced in the Salt Lake

Valley in 1852, and the reorganite position was that Brigham Young lied when he said he got

this teaching from Joseph Smith. This dispute between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the reorganized

church went on for a century until in the 1980s when the evidence seemed to be so overwhelming

to the reorganites that they caved and finally admitted that yes, Joseph Smith did practice

polygamy. So what's the controversy anymore, you might ask? Well, there were some

of the reorganites who did not cotton to that admission by the church leaders and continued to promote

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